Melbourne, Fla.—Despite the Sunshine State Conference's leading rebounder out and a minus 18 rebounding margin for the game, Lynn University's men's basketball team battled toe-to-toe against the top-seeded Florida Tech Panthers and lost 98-92 in triple overtime in the quarterfinals of the SSC Tournament on Wednesday.
Jeremy Lampkin led Lynn (13-16, 6-11 SSC) with 20 points followed by Brandon Smith with 18 and Josh Garcia with 16.
Lynn raced out of the gates by grabbing a six point advantage on a Smith layup with 14:21 on the first-half clock up 9-3. Then with 11:12 left in the half, the Blue & White captured their biggest lead of the game at 16-4 and looked poised to continue pressing their advantage.
Six minutes later, Florida Tech answered with a 13-8 run to trim the Lynn lead down to three with 6:40 left in half number one.
Lynn countered after two Smith free throws to amass a 29-20 tilt with just over 2:30 left until halftime. The Panther's Derek Hellemann converted on a layup with 18 second left in the half to put the Fighting Knight advantage at seven at the intermission.
Lynn posted a 40 percent shooting mark from the field in half one and connecting on 2-of-8 from behind the arc. Even more impressive was the fact that the Lynn defense held one of the best players in the conference, Simon Cummings, scoreless the entire first half.
Florida Tech came out of the locker room with a renewed vigor and just over one minute into the second period, the Fighting Knights lead was a mere one at 31-30 with 18:55 left in regulation.
After never surrendering the lead for the entire game, LU looked prepared for the upset when Jerrell Oexndine rolled in a layup to extend the Lynn lead to seven with under seven minutes left.
Tech came back with three points to cut the Lynn lead down to four with 6:05 left. After a Slobodan Miljanic bucket, Hellemann made a layup with 5:34 left to take the score to Lynn 55, Florida Tech 53.
Both teams continued to punch and counter-punch until for the first time in the game, Cummings connected on a jumper to knot things up at 55 with 4:15 left in regulation.
Garcia then made a three followed by a Bo Jukic layup to extend the Lynn lead back to five with under three minutes left to play.
On the next Panthers possession, Anthony Jackson connected on a three with 2:30 left. Then Hellemann laid in a bucket to tie the game at 60 with 1:38 left.
Garcia converted an 18-foot jumper to recapture the lead for Lynn but Tech answered with two Cummings free throws to tie it up for only the third time in the game and 52 seconds remaining.
With the shot clock winding down, DeMario Fountain knifed his way into the lane and made a contested layup with 27 second left to give his Fighting Knights a slim two point tilt.
Jackson then worked his way into the lane and converted the game-tying layup with 14 seconds left. Fountain's three as time expired was no good and the SSC quarterfinal match would go into overtime.
In overtime number one, Florida scored after winning the opening tip-off to go up 66-64. The two-point advantage was the first lead Florida Tech had the entire game.
Only six points were scored by each team in the extra period but none as big a Garcia's 23-footer with 1:14 left to give the Knights a two-point lead.
On Tech's next possession, Cummings drew a foul in the act of shooting and made both attempts from the charity stripe to knot the game for the sixth time.
The Panthers' Edgars Eglitis had a 3-point attempt at the buzzer to win the game but the shot caught back iron the game went into a second overtime.
The momentum started to shift towards the Panthers in the Clemente Center as Tech grabbed an 82-79 advantage with 13 second left to play.
On Lynn's next possession, Smith was true on a game-tying three ball with 10 seconds left. Tech then missed its shot to win at the buzzer.
For the third-straight overtime period, the Panthers scored first then climbed their advantage to four after a missed shot from Fountain resulted in a Jackson layup.
Lynn cut the lead down to two with 3:46 to play on a Lampkin drive and layup but Cummings nailed a big three with 3:10 left to go up by five.
Over the last three minutes of overtime number three, the Tech combo of Julius Reid and Cummings amassed a combined 12 points and proved to be too much for Lynn in the triple overtime loss.
Lynn shot 50 from the field and 41 percent from behind the arc while Tech went 47 percent from the floor and 27 percent from downtown.
The difference-maker was the Panthers 19 offensive rebounds and 17 second chance points to Lynn's seven offensive boards and six second chance points. Florida Tech collected 50 total rebounds to Lynn's 32.
The Fighting Knights improved their win total by six games from last season and added an extra conference win as well during the 2011-12 season.
